Plants of the family Cannabaceae possess commercial value and have many uses and applications which arise from the natural products that are extracted from their flowers. For instance, hops are extracted from the flowers of humulus plants in this family. Hemp has multiple uses, including food and as a fiber for making clothing, rope, etc. Cannabis plants have long been considered to have medicinal properties. Many states, such as Colorado, Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska, Maine, Hawaii, Nevada, Vermont, Montana, Rhode Island, New Mexico, Michigan and New Jersey, allow the use of medicinal cannabis by persons with debilitating medical conditions as certified by physicians.
Cannabinoids, which are compounds derived from cannabis, are a group of chemicals from Cannabis sativa or Cannabis indica plants that are known to activate cannabinoid receptors (i.e., CB1 and CB2) in cells. There are at least 85 different cannabinoids that can be isolated from cannabis. These chemicals are also produced endogenously in humans and other animals and are termed endocannabinoids. Synthetic cannabinoids are man-made chemicals with the same structure as plant cannabinoids or endocannabinoids. Cannabinoids are cyclic molecules exhibiting particular properties such as the ability to easily cross the blood-brain barrier, weak toxicity, and few side-effects. The most notable cannabinoids are Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabinol (i.e., THC) and cannabidiol (i.e., CBD).
Some of the medical benefits attributable to one or more of the cannabinoids isolated from cannabis include treatment of pain, nausea, AIDS-related weight loss and wasting, multiple sclerosis, allergies, infection, depression, migraine, bipolar disorders, hypertension, post-stroke neuroprotection, epilepsy, fibromyalgia, as well as inhibition of tumor growth, angiogenesis and metastasis. Studies have shown that cannabinoids may also be useful for treating conditions, such as glaucoma, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, migraines, inflammation, Crohn's disease, dystonia, rheumatoid arthritis, emesis due to chemotherapy, inflammatory bowel disease, atherosclerosis, posttraumatic stress disorder, cardiac reperfusion injury, prostate carcinoma, and Alzheimer's disease. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,630,507 discloses Cannabinoids for use as anti-oxidants and neuro-protectants; U.S. Pat. No. 7,105,685 discloses Cannabinoids for the treatment of diseases associated with immune dysfunction, particularly HIV disease and neoplastic disorders; U.S. Pat. No. 7,109,245 discloses Cannabinoids useful as vasoconstrictors; U.S. Patent Publication No. US2011/0257256 discloses THC-CBD composition for use in treating or preventing Cognitive Impairment and Dementia; PCT Publication No. WO/2009/147439 discloses use of cannabinoids in the manufacture of a medicament for use in the treatment of cancer, in particular the glioma tumor; PCT Publication No. WO/2007/148094 discloses use of cannabinoids composition for the treatment of neuropathic pain; and U.S. Patent Publication No. US2010/0286098 discloses a method of treating tissue injury in a patient with colitis administering the cannabinoids.
While such a wide range of medical uses have been identified, the benefits achieved by cannabinoids for a particular disease or condition are believed to be attributable to a subgroup of cannabinoids or to individual cannabinoids. That is to say that different subgroups or single cannabinoids have beneficial effects on certain conditions, while other subgroups or individual cannabinoids have beneficial effects on other conditions. For example, THC is the main psychoactive cannabinoid produced by the Cannabis species and is well characterized for its biological activity and potential therapeutic application in a broad spectrum of diseases. CBD, another major constituent of cannabinoids, acts as an inverse agonist of the CB1 and CB2 cannabinoid receptors. CBD is a phytocannabinoid which, unlike THC, does not produce a psychoactive effects in humans. CBD is reported to exert analgesic, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and immunomodulatory effects.
To date, however, medicinal marijuana is used as a generic product whereby the patient is utilizing the entirety of the different cannabinoids to achieve medicinal results. Efforts have been made to maximize the medicinal benefit of cannabis for a patient having a particular condition, but such efforts are invariably complicated. For example, cannabis employed by a patient lacks consistent cannabinoid components and concentrations, and thereby fails to provide the maximum benefit to the patient.
Traditional cultivation methods for Cannabaceae plants are based upon large-scale facility greenhouses with automatic watering arrangements and hydroponics like cultivation channels to achieve automatically controlled cultivation management. Such cultivation facilities generally employ an infrared light filter of natural sunlight and various mechanical devices to facilitate the management of plant cultivation. As a result, the overall cost of production is extremely high, and the success rate of actual cultivation of a desirable cannabis plant which reproducibly expresses certain cannabinoid components is difficult, if not impossible to control. In addition, the traditional cultivation methods for cannabis plants can result in problems in ineffective operations management when different cannabis plants at different growth stages are cultivated in the same space.
Traditional cultivation methods for cannabis and other members of the Cannabaceae family cannot provide consistent cultivation conditions such that the desired products are reproducibly and optimally expressed from the same strain of plant. Thus, there is an unmet need to provide methods for cultivating Cannabaceae under controlled conditions to ensure increased productivity and quality, to provide reproducible expression and production of the desired natural products, while at the same time further enhancing the technology and value of large-scale cultivation of Cannabaceae. The present invention satisfies this need as addressed by the methods below.